Netflix vs Disney Plus: Which streaming service is right for you?

Netflix vs Disney Plus: Disney Plus went live in the UK in March. If you’re thinking about subscribing to the service, one of the key questions to consider is how it compares to Netflix, the long-reigning top dog in the streaming world. Here’s how they stack up against each other.

Netflix vs Disney Plus: Free trial

Both services offer a free trial to would-be users, but the free trial for Netflix is significantly longer than the Disney Plus free trial.

To sign up for Netflix’s free trial, follow this link, choose the right plan for you (details below), enter your payment details, and set up an account using an email address and password.

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Netflix vs Disney Plus: Price

Disney Plus only offers one subscription tier, whereas Netflix has three subscription plans can choose from.

Here’s how much a Disney Plus subscription costs:

£5.99 per month (£71.88 over the course of a year)

£59.99 per year (equivalent to £4.99 per month)

Here’s how much Netflix costs:

Basic (one screen at a time, max quality SD) − £5.99

Standard (up to two screens at a time, max quality HD) − £8.99 per month

Premium (up to four screens at a time, max quality 4K HDR) − £11.99 per month

However, since a Disney Plus subscription includes access to 4K and HDR content, and a single account lets you stream up to four different shows or films on four different devices at any one time, it should be compared to Netflix’s 4K HDR Premium plan.

The difference between £5.99 per month (£4.99 if you sign up for a year) and £11.99 per month is huge. That said, actually finding 4K content is much easier on Netflix than it is on Disney Plus.

Netflix vs Disney Plus: Content

And in fact, there’s an argument to be made that these services aren’t really competing very much at all, in that they aren’t really courting the same audiences.

Both streaming services have a huge library of content at their disposal, but Disney Plus’ catalogue is, as you’d expect, very family-friendly. It’s packed with big-hitting golden oldies and the entire Marvel and Star Wars portfolios, but there isn’t much in the way of original, created-for-Disney-Plus content.

In fact, at the time of publication there are only 35 Disney Plus originals. However, this has grown from a miserly 13 in March.

Netflix, on the other hand, offers a far broader mix of different genres, and its content library is constantly in flux. There’s way, way more original content on Netflix than there is on it rival, but considering how fresh the Disney Plus platform is, that’s to be expected.

Netflix vs Disney Plus: Devices

As you’d expect from a big-name service in 2020, you can Disney Plus on a huge range of devices, including smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, streaming devices and games consoles, and through some big-name services like Sky Q and Roku.

The full list of devices and platforms that support Disney Plus is here.

And the same thing applies to Netflix too. You can find its list of supported devices and services here.

Netflix vs Disney Plus: Subscribers

Netflix’s streaming service has now been going for more than 10 years, so it has a far bigger subscriber base than Disney Plus.

On April 9, Disney Plus hit the 50 million mark, a significant milestone that came less than five months after the service initially went live in the US, Canada and the Netherlands on November 12. Disney has said that it’s aiming to have between 60 million and 90 million subscribers by the end of 2024.

Netflix had 182.856 million paid subscribers by the end of March 2020, having added 15.77 million paid customers during the first quarter of this year.

Aatif made his long-rumoured return to Trusted Reviews in 2018, having spent a wonderful 10 months writing all sorts for the site in 2015. During his self-imposed exile, he visited many faraway lands …

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